Dahlgren, who has lived in this Portland suburb since 2006, is the oldest son of Babe Dahlgren, the man who replaced Gehrig at first base for the Yankees in 1939. It ended Gehrig's streak of 2,130 consecutive games, a record that stood until Cal Ripken eclipsed it in 1995.

Behind Gehrig are his Yankees teammates, and the first player in the line, about eight feet behind Gehrig with his arms crossed, is Babe Dahlgren. Ray said his father told him he was instructed by manager Joe McCarthy to stand close enough behind the ailing Gehrig that he could catch him in case he collapsed.

Dahlgren said he often looks at the photo, but perhaps never as sentimentally as earlier this week, as the 75th anniversary neared.

"I was sitting there looking at it, and I realized how fortunate I am to be connected to that picture, connected with history,'' Dahlgren said. "As long as baseball is alive, that day will never die. Gehrig was a legend. And my dad replaced him.''

Then Ray Dahlgren, 71, said he shed a tear.

Not for Gehrig. But for Babe.

"I wish he was here right now. Because he wasn't just a baseball player, he was our dad,'' Dahlgren said. "We had so much fun together. I miss those days.''

Meeting, then replacing, an idol

When he attended Mission High in San Francisco, Babe Dahlgren idolized Gehrig. In a 1965 radio interview, which took place after his 12-year playing career had morphed into a coaching role, Dahlgren said he carried a picture of Gehrig in his binder at school.

"He was more or less an inspiration to me,'' Babe Dahlgren said in the interview.

He wasn't alone. Gehrig was among the most popular and revered athletes of his time, a two-time Triple Crown winner who had such a great season in 1927 (.373, 47 home runs and 175 RBI) that he won the MVP award even when teammate Babe Ruth hit a record 60 home runs.

When he was in high school, Babe Dahlgren could never imagine Gehrig missing a game, let alone one day replacing him in the Yankees lineup.

"It would seem like the wildest dream that I would be the guy to replace him,'' Dahlgren recalled.

But it happened on May 2, 1939 in Detroit, just nine games into the season. By then, Gehrig had noticed a dramatic slip in his game.

In spring training, he missed a foul ball in the field, falling in his attempt. Dahlgren remembers Gehrig struggled to get up. At the plate, players recalled Gehrig connecting with the ball, but not having the same power. And on the base paths, Babe Dahlgren recalled a spring training game where a normal triple for Gehrig became a double.

"They felt at first that he was getting old,'' Dahlgren said in the 1965 interview.

But once the regular season arrived, Gehrig knew something was wrong. He went 4-for-28 in the first eight games, and he told McCarthy to take him out of the lineup for the May 2 game.

Third base coach Art Fletcher was the first to tell Dahlgren he would be starting in place of Gehrig.

When he returned to the dugout, he took a drink from the fountain and stayed hunched over. Dahlgren remembers sitting next to relief pitcher Johnny Murphy and remarking that Gehrig was crying. So Murphy took a towel and tossed it at Gehrig. It landed over his head and shielded Gehrig's emotion.

Eventually, Dahlgren said Gehrig took the towel, wiped his face and went to the end of the bench, where he stayed for the entire game.

Dahlgren hit a home run and a double in the Yankees' 22-2 victory. He said he approached Gehrig in the seventh, eighth and ninth inning and told him he should continue his streak, but Gehrig told him, 'No, Babe, you are doing all right.' ''

Gehrig would never play again.

Six weeks later, with his condition worsening, Gehrig left the team in Chicago to meet with doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. After six days of testing, he was told he had ALS.

The day the doctors told him, it was Gehrig's 36th birthday.

"Dad said when Lou got word from the doctors, it was as if Jack Dempsey had hit him on the chin,'' Ray Dahlgren said. "He changed.''

Wrongful rumor

Dahlgren would go on to play 144 games in 1939, finishing with a .235 average, 15 home runs and 89 RBI. The Yankees swept the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series and Dahlgren hit a solo home run in the fourth inning of Game 2.

He would play one more season with the Yankees, hitting .264 with 12 homers and 73 RBI. He would later play for five more teams, and in 1943, one year after having Ray his first son, he played in the All-Star Game as a member of the Phillies.

But in his 12 seasons, he played for seven teams, despite displaying what many regarded as the best first-base glove in the game.

There was a reason, Dahlgren figured.

He maintained he was unfairly labeled as a marijuana user, and in 1943 he went as far to become the first professional athlete to take a drug test (he passed) to clear his name.

His grandson, Matt Dahlgren, published in 2007 "Rumor In Town: A Grandson's Promise to Right a Wrong" which took Babe's memoirs and turned them into a book, complete with a hypothesis to who started the rumor (McCarthy) and an accusation that Brooklyn's Branch Rickey encouraged the rumor.

All told, he played in 1,137 Major League games, but none is remembered more than the day he replaced Gehrig in the lineup.

"My dad didn't want to be noted for taking Gehrig's place,'' Ray said. "He wanted to be noted for what he did in the game over his career.''

When his home burned down in 1980 in the Bradbury, Calif. Wildfires, Ray remembers his father outside the burnt remains. Inside, his memoirs, videotapes and memorabilia from his playing days were destroyed. A reporter asked Babe about what he had lost, and Ray remembers his father calmly pointing to his family around him.

"He said 'Everything of value is right here,'' Ray said. "And that's how dad was.''

'Don't throw it away'

On Friday, Gehrig's memorable speech will once again be heard around the nation, the echoes of "Today ... I consider myself ... the luckiest man on the face of the earth" adding to the nostalgia of the moment.

The public never saw much of Gehrig after that day. He was never a gregarious fellow to begin with, Babe said, and his sickness made him more reticent than usual.

But there were two images that Babe Dahlgren remembered from Gehrig's final days as a Yankee, ones that he relayed to his sons.

Before the 1939 World Series began, the Yankees were working out when Babe heard a scuffling of metal spikes on the concrete. It was Gehrig, who had come out to watch batting practice. As Ray remembers the story, Gehrig called over Babe.

Gehrig wanted to smoke a cigarette, but his shoulders were too pained to execute the necessary motions.

"So dad reached above him, pulled out a cigarette and lit it for him,'' Ray said. "And he put the cigarette in and out of his mouth for him.''

Later, during the World Series, Gehrig was again on the bench and called Babe over.

But that's not how Babe, or Ray, wanted to remember Gehrig. Hanging beside the giant photo of Gehrig's farewell ceremony are two photos that were Babe's favorite. The first is from Babe's rookie season in 1935, when as a member of the Boston Red Sox, he had his picture taken next to his idol. The other photo is of the two as teammates.

"When I look at those pictures on the wall, I think, how many times does something like this happen in life? When you are a senior in high school and you have his picture in your binder and he is your idol, and now you are sitting there taking his place,'' Ray said. "To me, that's amazing.''

Maybe someday the kids in the cul-de-sac will think it's amazing, too. If anything, Ray Dahlgren hopes the younger generation hears Gehrig's speech on Friday and takes something from it.

"He was a legend in sports history, and he was taken down with this terrible disease,'' Ray said. "It shows that no matter who you are, or how old you are, you are not invincible. It's like dad used to say to me and my brother: